Trump administration loses grip on bird flu, experts warn Disease is spreading among mink and cattle in a ‘completely preventable’ outbreak
The Trump administration has been criticised for losing control of a bird flu outbreak that has spread among mink and cattle farms across the United States.

90% of cases occurred in historically under-vaccinated communities; findings offer insights for countries aiming to retain or regain their elimination status.

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In her Science Insider story “New U.S. rules on risky pathogen research draw mixed reviews” (29 July, 10.1126/science.zfz2hl6), S. Reardon reports concerns about the ambiguity of the United States Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research.

At the School of Public Health’s State of the School address last month, SPH Dean Francesca Beaudoin PhD’17 announced a pilot program that aims to connect Master’s in Public Health students with local public health organizations. The initiative, called the Anchor Fellowship, seeks to develop lasting relationships.

Canada’s loss of measles elimination status is a troubling sign of a global trend in increasing susceptibility to infectious diseases. Even high income countries are struggling to control a disease that they once eliminated, raising serious questions about international efforts in protecting populations from dangerous pathogens. Amid a worldwide measles resurgence, Canada’s experience underscores the fragility of hard-won public health achievements and the need for countries to recommit to elimination, not only to prevent needless illness and death but also to strengthen defences against risk of infectious diseases more broadly.
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For nearly two years, the U.S. has had to swallow an uncomfortable reality: A highly infectious disease it once eliminated is spreading again.

More than 4,400 measles cases and at least three deaths have been reported nationwide this year, marking the country’s worst outbreak in more than three decades. The spike followed nearly 2,300 cases in 2025. But many public health experts argue that the return of measles isn’t the only concerning development — it’s also what the resurgence signals about America that’s causing alarm.

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An outbreak of bird flu at a mink farm in Utah – and the response from its owner and regulators – has sparked concerns from infectious disease experts about the Trump administration’s ability to manage such viruses.

How many people, when they consider the biggest impacts on their health, would include the buildings they occupy on the list? Surely not many – yet the high-caliber experts presenting at the third Healthy Building Policy Summit held in late September in Washington, D.C., are seeking to change that.

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A recent indoor air report from the Brown University Pandemic Center, International WELL Building Institute and Air Club can help union health and safety committees make their case to improve school air for everyone.

The strain of bird flu that’s ripped through American barns for the last four years has killed two people who caught it from sick animals. But as far as anyone can tell, humans can’t spread it. The virus has remained a true “bird” flu, tailored to attach to avian cells, not invade human throats and noses, where coughing and sneezing reliably spew droplets.

More than two decades after measles was declared eliminated in the United States, the country is experiencing its deadliest resurgence of the virus since 2000, with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announcing the third measles death of the year this week.

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At UNGA 81, health experts urged governments to integrate noncommunicable disease prevention into pandemic preparedness plans. Here are three key recommendations to bridge the gap.

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ADPH identified 195 contacts in a North Alabama measles investigation after an infectious traveler visited Huntsville’s Bailey Cove area.

South Africa signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, the first multilateral treaty to ban an entire class of weapons, on 10 April 1972, and ratified it in November 1975.

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An eighth person in Kenya has tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in the country’s first-ever cluster of cases of the virus, as the second-largest outbreak in history has killed more than 4,300 and sickened more than 9,000 people in the region.
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In Part Four of our six-part series, legal missteps, political caution, and evidentiary hurdles allowed Project Coast’s mastermind to walk free.

Nelson Mandela stepped down as president of South Africa on 13 June 1999. He wanted to set an example on the African continent and disrupt its tradition of having lifetime heads of state.

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This landmark publication marks a critical step forward in our mission to revolutionize how indoor air quality (IAQ) is measured, regulated, and managed globally

Earlier this year, Dr. Jeremy Faust noticed what he considered a remarkable COVID landmark that came and went with little fanfare.

From early May through early August, COVID was virtually nonexistent in Massachusetts’ waste water. During that roughly three-month period, the virus claimed fewer than 10 lives, a record low over the past six years.

As flu season settles in on College Hill, sniffles can be heard in every lecture hall. In students’ curiosity as to how they can stay healthy, they may turn to an age-old adage: an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

The World Health Organisation has said it doesn’t know how a lab worker in Siberia died, and she urged Russia to provide more information about a case that prompted global concerns about suspected pneumonic plague.

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A 28-year-old worker at a research laboratory in Siberia recently died of pneumonia. The facility studies plague, among other pathogens, raising fears that she had been exposed at the laboratory.

In 2024, poliovirus was detected in Gaza's wastewater before a paralytic case was confirmed, and the World Health Organization (WHO) found continued environmental circulation into the following year. By the end of 2025, however, no further detections had been reported, suggesting that a targeted vaccination campaign during a brief ceasefire may have interrupted transmission. The episode shows why epidemic intelligence in damaged urban environments cannot depend on clinics alone: wastewater and other environmental signals can reveal transmission when routine care and reporting have been disrupted. Damage to health facilities and water and sanitation systems further weakens the capacity to prevent, detect, and contain outbreaks.

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Florida's former surgeon general, Dr. Scott Rivkees, warned of "great harm to children" if the state Department of Health moves forward with its proposal to eliminate rules that require four vaccines for young children in daycare and schools.

A laboratory worker in a plague research institute in Siberia died last week after developing pneumonia. Since then, local reports suggesting that she broke a test tube containing plague bacteria have fueled speculation about how she became ill. Russian authorities disputed that account and told the World Health Organization (WHO) that plague had not been detected in her tests nor in those of her close contacts.
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She builds the alarm systems that warn us before an outbreak becomes a pandemic. A conversation about why prevention is invisible until it fails, what the world learned too late from Ebola and COVID, and the next threat she is racing to get ahead of.

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The Trump administration is struggling to get clear answers about the death of a Russian laboratory worker at an institute dedicated to studying the plague and has formally escalated its request for information from the country, amid days of stonewalling from Russian officials about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the episode.

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The reported death of a 28-year-old laboratory technician in eastern Siberia has triggered regional quarantines and international attention over fears of the cause of death and a lack of transparency.

According to local media reports, Darya Shipilova, a technician employed at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, died on Oct. 2 at a regional hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov. She had been diagnosed with pneumonia of “unknown” origin, according to Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s public health agency.

What diseases are spreading right now? Are we even tracking diseases anymore? Should I be worried about measles? Should I bother getting my flu and COVID vaccines? We dive in and answer ALL those questions on this week's episode of the pod

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We go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the site of the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history. Health authorities believe the outbreak first began in January but was not detected until May, in part due to cuts in global health investments, like the dismantling of USAID. Since then, over 8,000 cases have been recorded, with more than 4,000 fatalities so far.

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A woman’s death last week near a Russian facility studying the plague immediately put the world on alert. This is the plague, after all, responsible for the deaths of some half of the humans in Europe during the worst outbreak in the 1300s. And it happened in Russia, a country with a long history of bioweapon experimentation.

Thousands of people have been quarantined in Russia after a 28-year-old lab worker died from suspected pneumonic plague, leading to concerns about global transmission.
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This past weekend, “CLIMATE-CULTURE-COMMUNITY” was the central theme behind the Brown Political Review’s inaugural documentary film festival PROV/DOC. The two-day festival showcased documentaries from student, faculty and local filmmakers that spotlighted underreported issues, according to Julianna Muzyczyszyn ’27, BPR’s co-editor-in-chief.
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Before Wilmot James — professor of the practice of health services, policy and practice — took the helm of the Africa Initiative at the Watson School of International and Public Affairs this year, he had on a number of different roles. From penning a speech for Nelson Mandela to serving in the South African Parliament, James brings wide-ranging knowledge of African health security to his new role on College Hill.

The US says it is closely monitoring the death of an employee at a Siberian "anti-plague" laboratory from what Russian officials are calling pneumonia of an unknown origin.

The fatality in the eastern city of Irkutsk last week has sparked conflicting statements from regional politicians and federal authorities in Russia.
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Russian authorities told the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday that a laboratory worker who died last week had not been found to have plague, and that no cases had been detected among people who came into contact with her.

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In the third of a six-part series, the new South African President FW de Klerk is shocked to learn of the apartheid biological weapons programme and takes action to suspend those involved in what was known as Project Coast.
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From apartheid to the front lines of global health, Listening to Shadows is the gripping true story of one man’s fight for freedom, truth, and survival.
At a moment when democracy and truth are under siege across the globe, Listening to Shadows tells the extraordinary story of South African Member of Parliament and Shadow Minister of Health Wilmot James, who rose from the power struggles in South Africa to the front lines of global health leadership.
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The second of six parts on the apartheid-era biological programmes that went by the benign name of Project Coast – a covert endeavour representing some of the worst practices in building and dismantling a biological weapons capability responsibly. Profound lessons can be learnt about how to – and how not to – govern high-consequence projects.

As governments and international organizations convene for the 81st United Nations General Assembly to address challenges including infectious diseases, wildfire smoke and extreme heat, the Brown University Pandemic Center, Montenegrin Institute for Advanced Innovation (MIAI), Air Club and International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) have launched the Global Indoor Air Quality Policy Database.

Director Jennifer Nuzzo and the Tracking Report are featured in this article on alternative information sources.

The first comprehensive global database of indoor air quality policies gives leaders the evidence to act, and shows momentum building fast, even as most countries still lack anyone clearly in charge.

As world leaders gather at the 81st United Nations General Assembly to confront disease threats, wildfires, and extreme heat, the Brown University Pandemic Center, Montenegrin Institute for Advanced Innovation (MIAI), Air Club and the International WELL Building Institute today released the Global Indoor Air Quality Policy Database, a tool to help governments strengthen resilience against many threats at once. It is the first comprehensive repository of country indoor air quality (IAQ) policies, cataloguing 253 policies across 53 countries.

As world leaders and climate experts gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week, a major milestone in public health and environmental governance has been unveiled: the release of the Global Indoor Air Quality Policy Database.

The U.S. declared measles eliminated in 2000 — so why are we seeing more cases and deaths than in the last 30 years? Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo reveals the hyper-local vaccination gaps driving the resurgence, and why preparing for the next pandemic starts on your block, not in Washington.

The first comprehensive global database of indoor air quality policies gives leaders the evidence to act, and shows momentum building fast, even as most countries still lack anyone clearly in charge

The first of six parts on the biological programmes that went by the benign name of Project Coast – a covert endeavour representing some of the worst practices in building and dismantling a biological weapons capability responsibly. Profound lessons can be learnt about how to – and how not to – govern high-consequence programmes.

With 177 new cases added today, the US measles count has climbed to 3,471, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its weekly update has yet to acknowledge any of the four measles-related deaths recently reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH), two in babies and two involving adults.

As Bangladesh faces a deadly measles outbreak, experts assess what it would take for the U.S. to reach similar levels

In Bangladesh, hospitals and community health workers are facing an unrelenting battle against measles. Despite increased vaccination rates, cases have surged into the deadliest outbreak the South Asian country has seen since 2005.

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Investment in continent’s health professionals is key to early outbreak response

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A third person has died from complications associated with measles in Pennsylvania amid a fast-growing outbreak in the state and rising cases nationwide.

A 40-year-old woman died on Saturday, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office has confirmed. Greg Furlong, the coroner, said in a statement, "This is a heartbreaking loss for the family and an unfortunate reminder that measles can be a serious and potentially life-threatening disease."

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